Can you imagine harvesting energy through the clothes you wear? The GRAPHERGIA project innovators will make it possible.

A consortium of 11 partners from six European nations launched GRAPHERGIA, an ambitious 3.5-year Research and Innovation endeavor, funded by €4.5 million within the framework of Horizon Europe, in October 2023. Aimed at redefining the integration of energy solutions into everyday life, GRAPHERGIA will transform how we use and store energy, marking a significant milestone in the journey towards a climate-neutral future.

Unveiling the Team Behind the GRAPHERGIA Project: Meet some of our Partners

During the first six months of this journey to power future energy with graphene, we started interviewing some of our partners so they could speak about their expectations within GRAPHERGIA, but also have the opportunity to explain to us their role and responsibilities in the project: Meet Spyros Yannopoulos, our coordinator from Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH); Nasos Masouras from Pleione Energy, and Despoina Batsouli from Adamant Composites.

“The project aspires to pioneer a reliable laser-assisted method capable of producing high-quality graphene-like materials and graphene-based nanohybrids at industrial scales, with a novel power management system. This system is essential for facilitating the realization of self-powered smart clothing. In parallel, GRAPHERGIA aims to advance a “dry” production method for LIB anode electrodes, aligning with the principles of Industry 4.0.” – Spyros Yannopoulos.

“GRAPHERGIA offers a great opportunity to investigate the beneficial properties of graphene and its nanohybrids on energy storage devices based also in a sustainable process such as laser processing of bio-based precursors.” – Nasos Masouras.

“GRAPHERGIA could achieve scalable and cost-effective production of e-textiles that could revolutionize the fashion industry and everyday life.” – Despoina Batsouli.

Reading Spyros’, Athanasios’ and Despoina’s interviews will help you to understand better how GRAPHERGIA is weaving cutting-edge graphene tech into our daily life, unlocking the potential of laser-assisted graphene production to shape the future of smart, self-charging textiles and next-generation Li-ion batteries, powering devices sustainably bridging the gap to the Internet of Things. How? Through three use cases:

  • Demo case 1:  All-in-one self-charging textile capable of energy harvesting and storage
  • Demo case 2: Self-powered structurally integrated sensor for aerospace structures
  • Demo case 3: Advanced graphene-based LIB module prototype for space applications

GRAPHERGIA, Advancing Graphene and other 2D Materials Technologies together with the Graphene Flagship

GRAPHERGIA and the Graphene Flagship, both EU-funded initiatives, work to advance technologies that rely on graphene and other two-dimension (2D) materials.

The Graphene Flagship brings together 118 academic and industrial partners in 12 research and innovation projects and one coordination and support project. GRAPHERGIA is part of it to contribute to Europe’s strategic autonomy in technologies that rely on graphene and other 2D materials, in our case, to fight Europe’s escalating energy crisis.

In fact, on the 5th and 6th of February, 2024, the GRAPHERGIA team participated in the joint kick-off meeting of the sister research and innovation projects related to graphene and 2D materials under the umbrella of the Graphene Flagship Initiative. The Flagship, directed by Patrik Johansson from Chalmers University of Technology, hosted the meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden.

But that wasn’t the only meeting some partners enjoyed during the past six months. On the 2nd and 3rd of November, 2023, the GRAPHERGIA coordinator, Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), gathered the project consortium members for a kick-off meeting organized at their premises in Patras, Greece. During the two meeting dates, the 11 project partners aligned their initial working plan, fixed the objectives for the first project year, and discussed the potential challenges to be managed.

Regarding the upcoming months, there are some other relevant events we will attend:

Last, but not least, we also submitted our first two project deliverables that you can download and read on Zenodo:

GRAPHERGIA’s dual focus represents a paradigm shift in the graphene industry, promising scalable, sustainable, and application-driven advancements that will shape the future of energy storage and smart textiles in Europe.

To discover more about how we will revolutionize future energy with graphene, subscribe to our newsletter, check our website and follow us on LinkedIn and X!

You can also check our Privacy Policy.

This newsletter was originally published on LinkedIn.